Monday, December 15, 2014

Indian couple (1 Xoogler) buys small US bank, innovates online payments

By Vasudev Ram

Interesting story of innovation in the financial space, involving an Indian couple (of whom one is a Xoogler a.k.a ex-Googler), a small US bank, and cheaper / faster online money transfers / payments:


(Did you know that the English word bank supposedly comes from the old Italian word banca (for bench)?

An Indian couple has bought a small bank in Weir, Kansas, USA, and is using it to innovate in the online financial payments / money transfers space (while preserving and improving the existing brick-and-mortar business of the bank). The site through they allow faster / cheaper payments or money transfers from the US to India (and currently, or soon, other countries), is globalremit.com. Their rate for sending a payment under $1000 USD is $2.50, which works out to 0.25 percent. For above $1000, it is free (disclaimer: all this is according to what I saw on the site recently).

Suresh Ramamurthi earlier worked at Google on the Checkout product, and Suchitra Padmanabhan earlier worked at Lehman Brothers and Bankers Trust.

I saw this news via this tweet by Quentin Hardy (@qhardy), Deputy Tech Editor, The New York Times. (Saw it from a retweet by Bernard Lunn.)

The tweet goes thusly:

"Guy from India learns payments at Google, buys tiny Kansas bank, transforms money. Great, from @nathanielpopper dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/13/sma…"

And here is the New York Times article referred to in the tweet:

Small Bank in Kansas Is a Financial Testing Ground

- Vasudev Ram - Dancing Bison Enterprises

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